


no dose of emotional chemotherapy (can halt my pathetic decline)

by Maiden_of_the_Moon



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: (Sorry Ptolemy), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mostly humor, Ptolemy and Kitty walk into a hospital and only one walks out, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21802726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Maiden_of_the_Moon
Summary: For all of his sarcasm, all of his acerbic wit, Bartimaeus could not, for the life of him, remember the last time anyone had treated him with anything less than nauseating kindness, never mind such immediate, obvious distain.I think,he realized in a rush,that I am in love.
Relationships: Bartimaeus/Nathaniel (Bartimaeus)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	no dose of emotional chemotherapy (can halt my pathetic decline)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [izzybusiness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzybusiness/gifts).

> _Disclaimer:_ No.
> 
> _Author’s Note:_ Christ, I wrote an AU so things could be less sad and I still killed off Ptolemy. I suck.
> 
> _Dedication:_ For izzybusiness, because the brilliance of their Bartimaeus AU, “love is colder than death,” made me want to try a Bartimaeus AU for myself. (Theirs is also a bajillion times better than this; go read it.)
> 
> _Warnings:_ Alternate universe. _Not told in chronological order._ (Hence the tense-switches.) Character death. Sickness. Sass. Sex. Other things that start with “s,” probably. I'm aware of my own failure re: Britain's education system. Does anyone else ever think about how Nathaniel and Kitty are both thin and dark haired and close in age and how Kitty’s parents loved the magicians and how we don’t know who Nathaniel’s parents were? 
> 
> Because I think about that. 
> 
> Title from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoUn4Pg9ShI).

\---

__

_no dose of emotional chemotherapy  
(can halt my pathetic decline)_

\---

Sometimes, even now, he looks in the mirror and can only see Ptolemy.

-

“Eugh,” Bartimaeus had sneered, making the biggest production a fourteen-year-old could out of leaning to the left. The legs of his plastic chair shifted and whined beneath him, threatening to tip over and dump his gangly body over the waiting room floor. “I don’t want to sit next to _you_. Have you seen your hair? You’re going to drip grease all over my nice new shirt.”

_You_ was a boy, maybe eleven, with pale skin, thin cheeks, and dark hair that could have really done with a wash. He glanced at Bartimaeus with dull blue eyes, then sat down far more heavily than one would’ve assumed possible, given his size. 

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a gown, anyway?” the kid asked, opening the book he’d had tucked under his scrawny arm. “I hear that’s what they use here to keep arses properly covered.” 

Bartimaeus blinked. Gawped. Almost missed the introduction of the kid’s mum.

Well, he assumed she was his mum, anyway; her features bore the same weary brand of hopelessness as all the other mothers in the ward. 

“Nathaniel!” she gasped, with a horror that likely stemmed from misinterpreting Bartimaeus’ expression. Around a dented coffee table and its ancient magazines she scurried, heels click-clacking over sterilized linoleum. “Where are your manners?!” 

“Certainly not in the pocket of those pants…” Bartimaeus hissed, taunting. Testing. Would he pass?

The boy— Nathaniel— sniffed behind his hardcover. “Then they must be off having adventures with your fashion sense.” 

“What?!” This time, Bartimaeus’ offense was a touch more genuine. “Gold is timeless!” he protested. 

“Not according to _that_ watch.” 

“_Nathaniel._” Yup, definitely his mother. Same chin, same nose. Same shriveling aura of disapproval. She loomed over them both, so close that Bartimaeus could see the red that rimmed her matching eyes. “Have some compassion! This is the brother of the boy you were talking to— the boy who’s sharing a room with Kitty.” 

Nathaniel’s grunt was muffled by his very old, boring-looking book. 

“So his brother is sick,” he drawled. “Doesn’t explain what’s wrong with _him._”

_Him_ was accentuated with a jerk of the kid’s smarmy little head, pointedly tilted in Bartimaeus’ direction. Then, for all intense and purposes, Nathaniel tucked himself into his reading and ignored the older boy in the same way that one would a particularly pesky fly. 

Which is to say, he didn’t really ignore him at _all._ Instead, he would valiantly pretend not to notice him until Bartimaeus squirmed, or coughed, or touched one of his (very hip, very cool) bangles. At this, Nathaniel would shoot his seat-mate a glare— making it clear that his concentration had just been broken in the most aggravating way possible— and emphatically turn a page, as if he considered the creature behind these inconveniences too insignificant to deal with properly. 

Bartimaeus digested this. For all of his sarcasm, all of his acerbic wit, he could not, for the life of him, remember the last time anyone had treated him with anything less than nauseating kindness, never mind such immediate, obvious distain. 

_I think,_ he realized in a rush, _that I am in love. _

-

Ptolemy hadn’t made it to fifteen. But their faces were identical, right down to the placement of their moles; eventually, Bartimaeus turns sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and he can think of no more terrible a curse than knowing exactly what his brother would have looked like, had they been allowed to celebrate their birthday together.

-

**[Today]**

**Natty-Boy:** I got Egypt. 

**Fartimaeus:** What, the whole country? How’d you manage to sneak it past customs? I got pinged for nail clippers, once. 

**Natty-Boy:** For my world history report, you idiot. 

**Natty-Boy:** Help me with it. 

**Fartimaeus:** That’s not how you ask for favors. What’s the magic word?

**Natty-Boy:** I’ll change my Netflix password. 

**Fartimaeus:** Nope, don’t think that’s it. First clue: that’s more than one word. Second, felt more threat-like than magical.

**Natty-Boy:** Help me with it, or else. 

**Fartimaeus:** Not if you’re going to give me lip. 

**Natty-Boy:** I could give you a finger, instead. 

**Fartimaeus:** Why should I help you? I am a busy, sophisticated, sagacious third year uni student. You are a lazy, entitled high school fourth year. 

**Natty-Boy:** Ok boomer. 

**Fartimaeus:** …

**Fartimaeus:** Now, there’s no need for that kind of language. 

**Fartimaeus:** I don’t understand why you’d want me to help out, anyway. Your grades are better than mine ever were. 

**Fartimaeus:** Which is, of course, demonstrably unfair, given how much smarter I am than you. 

**Fartimaeus:** I think my projects were just ahead of their time.

**Natty-Boy:** Definitely a problem for a HISTORY class, yes. 

**Natty-Boy:** And on the subject. 

**Natty-Boy:** If I were grading you, I’d give you an F, as well. 

**Natty-Boy:** But in English, rather than world history. 

**Fartimaeus:** What. 

**Natty-Boy:** For failing to recognize nuance. 

**Fartimaeus:** What.

**Natty-Boy:** Subtext. 

**Fartimaeus:** …

**Fartimaeus:** What.

**Natty-Boy:** Good lord, at this rate, you’ll never work that F up to a D. 

**Fartimaeus:** You… Wait. 

**Fartimaeus:** Nat. 

**Fartimaeus:** Nathaniel. 

**Fartimaeus:** Is this…

**Fartimaeus:** Is this a proposition? 

**Fartimaeus:** Are you propositioning me like a dumb jock would the bookish, but hot-beneath-her-glasses tutor in a movie from the 1980s?

**Natty-Boy:** Well, it’s certainly not your mediocrity that I want rubbing off on me.

-

Kitty pulled through. Same diagnosis, same treatment, same chances for survival.

The nineteen-year-old lived. The fourteen-year-old did not.

“There’s a joke in this about nine lives, or something,” Bartimaeus had snorted, pinching the threadbare corners of a quilt. Nathaniel held its opposite end, and together they danced the cumbersome, age-old waltz known as Folding An Oversized Blanket. It was the last of Kitty’s personal belongings, which they had volunteered to clear out of the room while she resettled at home. 

The boy— twelve now, pensive and greasier than ever— grunted. It wasn’t the sort of clever repartee to which Bartimaeus had grown accustomed over the past few months. 

“What’s your problem?” he frowned, trying to catch his friend’s furtive eyes. “Peeved ‘cause you’d already stuck a claim on Kitty’s stereo, or something?” 

Nathaniel shrugged, adding the quilt to the cardboard box. There wasn’t much else inside it: a silver charm, a favorite jacket. A journal that Ptolemy had given her, full of his writing. 

“Doesn’t seem right, is all,” Nathaniel muttered, meticulously ensuring that the journal was hidden by the blanket, as one might use a plaster to cover a cut. “To… you know. Be salty. Around your open wounds. As it were.” 

Not for the first time, Bartimaeus felt a sharp, guilty gratitude that he was not the one who’d been hooked up to the medical equipment. He would rather have thrown himself out of the hospital’s second story window and onto a pile of hypodermic needles than have Nathaniel know what this— this _behavior_ of his— was doing to his blood pressure, his pulse, his sundry organs. Those tentative glances and hesitant comments had carved the bottom from Bartimaeus’ otherwise-fairly-strong stomach, and acid had begun to liquidize his bowels. 

“You can’t be both metaphorical _and_ a moron. Not at the same time,” he retorted, aiming for snarky. Fearing he landed far closer to nervous. “It makes you impossible to understand, _Nat_.” 

The boy’s eyes seemed even bluer when glimpsed beneath the fringe of his long, black lashes. Unbidden, Bartimaeus thought of bruises. 

“Ptolemy died,” Nathaniel intoned. Slowly, somberly, he turned to sit on the edge of the bed, rumpling its crisp edges. “Your brother _died_, Bartimaeus, and my sister didn’t. We’re not… on the same page anymore.” 

A scoff. It echoed, too loud in the small, clean space. 

“You and your _books_,” Bartimaeus sneered, dropping far less primly next to his friend. “It’s not healthy for a boy your age. Try video games. Or porn.” He slouched when Nathaniel straightened his back; he crossed his arms when Nathaniel set his elbows on his knees. 

“It’s just not… not _balanced_,” Nathaniel, undeterred, had continued, without even the decency to pink at the ears when sex was mentioned. “Not now. Which means it’s not fair. But God knows you’re too insufferable to talk to without insulting. Frankly, I can only be polite or tolerate your presence. So…” He took a big breath, deep and steadying. But even then, his next words came out small, and pitched, and shaking, “I expect… we’ll not be seeing each other after today.”

A minute passed. They heard every, single second of it go by, because apparently cancer hadn’t been enough for Ptolemy and Kitty; they’d also had to suffer the loudest fucking wall clock in Britain. 

_Ptolemy probably decided to sluff off the mortal coil just to get away from it._

Bartimaeus chewed his bottom lip. 

“Look,” he finally said, mostly to drown out the damn clock, “There’s a lot I’m willing to hold against you, Natty-boy.” A few demonstrative fingers were extended: “Your atrocious fashion. Your macabre taste in literature. That stupid way you smooth your bangs back when it would be so much easier to get a haircut. But your sister not kicking the bucket?” Bartimaeus laughed dryly, dropping his hand. “No. Not that. I’m _glad_ Kitty is still with us. Keeping you in line is a two-person job, at least.”

Another pause. This time, because Bartimaeus had tightened the fingers of that aforementioned hand into a fist. Hardly the teenager’s most impressive physical feat, to be sure, but Nathaniel had still watched him do so with wide, amazed eyes. 

Possibly because his own hand had been trapped inside that fist. 

“…is this something else you plan on holding against me?” Nathaniel asked, with an indicative nod of his head. There was something light—nearly effervescent— about his voice, and Bartimaeus hated it. Mostly because he understood it. He, too, felt pleasantly dizzy; his heart spasmed, and his cheeks burst into flame. 

“Shut up,” he grunted, shifting his grip just enough to twine their fingers. “Don’t make this into a big thing.” 

He squeezed. Nathaniel squeezed back. 

_God Almighty, Nathaniel squeezed back._

“Suck a dick,” the boy told Bartimaeus cheerfully, his curt tones at wonderful odds with the softness in his gaze. Just as well that they were already sitting; the tender sweep of his smile had left Bartimaeus’ knees curiously weak. “You’re not the master of me. I’ll make this into any size I please.”

“Ugh. ‘Course you would. I knew you were a fop.”

“You’re the one holding my hand,” Nathaniel countered, imperious. Also, technically correct. “So, I’d say it takes one to know one.” 

As retaliations went, this riposte was deplorably weak. Cliché, uncreative, zero-out-of-ten. Honestly, they had _standards_ for their banter; had it been any other day, Bartimaeus would have clapped back with something scathing, something exceedingly eloquent and droll. 

But he was feeling pretty generous, right then, so he let the pathetic comeback slide. 

Just that once.

-

Sometimes, he wants to tell him.

“Bartim… mmm—!” 

Sometimes, he almost does.

“Oh—oh— _oh,_ Bartimaeus, _fuck,_ please…! No, _no,_ don’t slow down, _no,_ faster, _fas_—” 

Sometimes, he can even feel the words where they live on his tongue: all melting lines and awkward angles, hot and cold and bittersweet. He tries to lick them into Nathaniel’s mouth, only to choke on stray consonants; he groans a syllable and a half of the confession, then swallows the rest with one of Nathaniel’s precious, eager mewls.

“Bartima— Ba— _ah,_ God—!”

“Oh, come now. Or— no, don’t, not yet. Anyway. ‘Bartimaeus’ is fine,” he rasps, his chuckles low and soft. Too soft. The corner of the quip snares on a leer, on straight white teeth and a sharp, red tongue, and Bartimaeus fears that it starts to unravel— to reveal the entreaty that hides within the cocoon of his bravado. 

_Say my name, please, say my name, say it, say it, say it until I believe that it’s mine, that I believe that I’m me, that I’m only_ me, _please say my name._

“Shut _up,_” Nathaniel whimpers, greedy fingers tangling anew in sweat-slicked hair. He leans—further and further, farther and farther— until gravity compels him to fall back, and the knot of his legs compels Bartimaeus to fall forward. 

“Nnn—!” 

The two keen in tandem, of one mind about the force and the angle. Desperate, demanding, Nathaniel arches in a way that brings high art and marble statues to the forefront of Bartimaeus’ mind. Pretty, naked things. 

“_Ngh_,” his own personal pretty, naked thing is whining. “I didn’t waste thirty-five pounds on a turtleneck for you _not_ to leave marks. Get to it, Bartimaeus.” 

Never let it be said that Bartimaeus doesn’t do as he’s told. He does. Enthusiastically. Unreservedly. 

“_Jesus Ch_— oh! Bartimaeus!”

And as he does, Bartimaeus thinks again about telling him. Almost does, too, once or twice. Almost bites it into the skin of Nathaniel’s freshly-abused nape. 

“Barti… Bartimae—!” 

Almost. 

“There— _there_, please, harder, please-_please_-please-Bartimaeus—!” 

But not now. Not yet. 

“_Bartimaeus_—!” 

_The only time I feel no pain,_ Bartimaeus will one day admit,_ is when I am inside you._

-

**[Today]**

**Kit-Kat:** Nat, where are you? 

**Kit-Kat:** Seriously, dipshit, text me back. 

**Kit-Kat:** I know you’re on a stupid soppy “not date” with your “not boyfriend” but there was some sort of explosion at the Glass Palace. It’s all over the news. Terrorists or something. Mum and I need to know you’re okay.

**Kit-Kat:** Dammit, Nathaniel, for once in your life could you NOT be a fucking tool and just check your phone?!

**Kit-Kat:** [Missed call]

**Kit-Kat:** [Missed call]

**Kit-Kat:** [Missed call]

-

The worst part is that it’s the same God damned room.

Something about renovations and overflow and some other bullshit that Bartimaeus’ mind doesn’t bother registering. He simply doesn’t care right now. Not when there are so many other, more important things to do, like figure out how to maneuver two adult male bodies on this slip of a hospital bed, how to best tuck himself between the tubes and the machines so he can curl against the comatose Nathaniel.

“’S the last time I let you choose where we go,” he mutters against a damp bandage, tasting iron on his lips. “Complain all you like. I won’t be swayed. From now on, we’re only visiting boring places. Like the Natural History Museum. Or. Or… I don’t know. Prague.” 

It’s supposed to be a joke. Even Bartimaeus isn’t sure what the punchline is.

He swallows harshly, but keeps his touch gentle. 

“You’re not allowed to die, you prick.” The heat of his breath, of his conviction, bounces off the pillow and back up into his face. Nathaniel’s lashes don’t so much as twitch. And for the first time, Bartimaeus wishes— knows he would give _anything_— for it to be _him_ who is hooked up to the medical equipment. For Nathaniel to be the one who is awake, who is safe; the one who had walked away miraculously unharmed. 

Well. “Unharmed,” except for his completely shattered heart. 

_Don’t leave me. Please. Don’t leave me here alone, I’m begging you._

“Do you hear me, _Nat?_ That’s an absolute, one-hundred-percent, solid _no_ on the bucket and the kicking thereof. This is non-negotiable. Completely against the rules. Do not pass go, do not collect two-hundred dollars.” 

_I can’t lose you, too._

-

**[Thur, Feb 14]**

**Natty-Boy:** A picture is worth a thousand words and there is a character limit on texting

**Natty-Boy:** So

**Natty-Boy:** [Image Attached]

**Fartimaeus:** Bit of constructive feedback. 

**Fartimaeus:** Perhaps seek medical treatment. 

**Fartimaeus:** What the hell is wrong with your hand? Sclerodactyly? 

**Natty-Boy:** It’s half a heart, you spoon. 

**Fartimaeus:** Oh. 

**Fartimaeus:** In that case, where’s the other half? Haven’t I earned a whole heart? You cheapskate. How would you like it if I brought you half a box of yogurt-covered raisins? 

**Natty-Boy:** You mean like yesterday? 

**Natty-Boy:** OBVIOUSLY I needed the other hand to take the picture. 

**Fartimaeus:** Kitty refused to help you?

**Natty-Boy:** I’m pretty sure Kitty is busy “helping” Jakob. 

**Fartimaeus:** Ah. 

**Fartimaeus:** Well.

**Fartimaeus:** I WOULD have suggested, you know, a bit of quid pro quo, givin’ the two of ‘em a hand to get the help you needed… but I’m still not so sure you haven’t got Dupuytren's contracture or something. 

**Natty-Boy:** Ha ha ha fuck you.

**Fartimaeus:** Fuck me yourself, you coward. 

**Natty-Boy:** Later. 

**Fartimaeus:** !!!

**Fartimaeus:** I’m holding you to that.

**Fartimaeus:** And possibly to a wall

**Fartimaeus:** TBD

**Fartimaeus:** Hey 

**Fartimaeus:** Hey

**Fartimaeus:** Hey Nat

**Fartimaeus:** Hey

**Natty-Boy:** Christ, WHAT? 

**Fartimaeus:** …

**Fartimaeus:** _you_ know

**Natty-Boy:** Yes

**Natty-Boy:** I know

**Fartimaeus:** <3 

**Natty-Boy:** Lol. Gay.

-

A week later, Nathaniel wakes up. And were he physically capable, he probably would have jolted upright, slammed his head into Bartimaeus’, and knocked himself out cold for another month.

Fortunately for all involved, Nathaniel’s body— and the myriad of bandages woven around it, _and_ the copious drugs pumping through it— refuse to let him do more than twitch in surprise and garble a sound that might have been a name, or an oath, or a combination of both. 

All the while, Bartimaeus continues to loom over Nathaniel, his features flushed and his eyes glittering with tears. 

“I love you,” he says in greeting. 

With the incredible gravitas of a mathematician attempting to solve the Riemann Hypothesis, Nathaniel knits his brows together. His gaze— while bleary— is also calculating, bemused. His scowl could almost be described as suspicious. Though, “fuzzy” is still probably the more appropriate adjective. 

“…huh. Well. Too bad,” Nathaniel mumbles, each word a cotton ball that he struggles to spit out. “I really thought… I had pulled through… But I guess not.” He blinks, the movement sticky. His lids are slightly out of synch with one another; a scar is still healing across the left. “’S this heaven, then…? Mmm... Nah. Don’t think so… you look more like a demon…”

Bartimaeus is grinning. Crying, too. But mostly grinning. Smiling, beaming. All quite madly, no doubt. 

“I love you,” he snuffles, “I love you.” 

Nathaniel giggles. “Yup,” he nods to himself, dreamily popping the p. There are a lot of opiates in that IV drip, from what Google has told Bartimaeus. “Demon…”

“I love you.” 

“Gay demon. Cute… stupid gay… spoon. Demon.”

“I love you.”

“With the…” 

“I love you. You know I do, Nathaniel,” Bartimaeus whispers, draping himself over Nathaniel in a ginger, full-bodied hug. He tucks his head against Nathaniel’s nape, kisses his collar bone, gives thanks to any God listening, and proclaims, “Nathaniel. I love you.” 

Discolored arms fall around him, so weak. So strong. 

“I love you, too, Bartimaeus.”

\---


End file.
